Inverting the Internet
The story that's keeping me up at night...
Participation inequality plagues the internet. Only 1% of people on any given platform create new content. 99% only consume.
Many think that's just what happens when human communities scale. But maybe it's just what happens in an internet built for advertising. Consider that:
All of the internet's interfaces—social feeds, search bars, news sites—are optimized for consumption.
Interfaces for creating new content, particularly knowledge, are antiquated. Word-processors look like they did forty years ago, disconnected from the internet and any content you might write about. Which means: writing requires hours of searching and sorting. Knowledge creation is painful for the people best at it, and inaccessible to most others.
What would it take to make writing accessible? Maybe: a totally new kind of interface. Ideally: a word-processor that pulls in the information you need as you type. And what would that take?
Unprecedented NLP to make connections as you type,
A word-processor redesigned around links, and
A highly technical team focused on a non-technical market.
If achieved, it would:
save writers hours,
make knowledge production accessible to anyone who knows how to type, and
lay the groundwork for a mainstream knowledge economy.
At Plexus, we’ve built a word-processor that processes your words. It’s like Roam with automatic connections and no special grammar (8x the links; 12x the market). Students & journalists say it makes outlining 3x faster.
It may be the interface that inverts the internet. In five years, browsers won't open to a search bar. Social media won't open to a feed. You'll encounter a blank page, which you'll fill with ideas you have, problems you face, and situations you're in. In the process, you'll be connected to the resources and people you need.
Large-scale communities will form, not just around consumption, but also around shared production of knowledge. And, with the introduction of knowledge tokens, intellectual property will burst out of ivory towers. All kinds of individuals—not just exceptional writers, talented developers, and rich companies—will be able to earn a living based on the things they know.
Stay tuned.
Davey